On The Road 2010: Sprint Beats AT&T on Toll Road Coverage

AT&T may have gotten some good news lately, but it still has its self inflicted problems to overcome. As my wife and I made the drive from Northwestern Virginia to Chicago, IL, we took the toll road route through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. We hit some lake effect snow in Ohio, but other than that it was a good trip.

As we stopped at various rest stops along the way, I noticed that AT&T would only allow Edge service at any of the stops we made (that would be a total of 4 along the way). I also noticed as we were driving that AT&T’s 3G coverage was spotty along the entire toll route.

Sprint however was a different story. With either my wife’s phone, or with the MiFi card, we were able to pull down a pretty steady 3G signal through that entire path. Intriguingly at one rest stop there were big signs announcing an AT&T hotspot with free WiFi. Unfortunately it was down at the time of our brief rest stop.

I tired to use AT&T’s Mark The Spot app, which lets you report a problem, but that was too often a battery chewing wait that I just gave up on that and remembered why I mocked the release of that app at the beginning. If you can’t get a decent signal, how you can report a signal problem.